Things They Didn't Talk About
by Shadowmancer1
Summary: When you put a person back together enough times, it is hard not to start caring. An AU drabble series.
1. Like You

**Like You**

_Not owned by me blah, blah, blah._

* * *

He was late. He was never late. I'm watching the clock, it's a grimy clock, not surprising considering the dust is so thick in this place it looks like ash. I've stopped bothering to clean up any of the other safe houses he's hidden me in. He worries somehow, someway, that one of the Death Eaters will find someway to me. They hate him because Voldemort favors him above all. Because he killed the greatest wizard of our time.

Albus Dumbledore died by his hand and I keep his murderer alive, keep his secrets too. All because Dumbledore asked me to. Made me swear to help Severus before I knew what the plan even was. I know now, I know it was necessary, but I'd be lying if I said a big part of me didn't hate him for it.

I'm bound by oath to help a man that drove me to tears on a regular basis. That made no attempt to even hide the fact that he hated me. That a part of me hated him right back. I've been with him for a year now and I don't hate him anymore. I've seen what killing Dumbledore did to him; he relieves it every night in his sleep. Sometimes he calls me Lily. I know about her too, courtesy Dumbledore and his need to make me understand, to make me care about _him._

He needn't have bothered. Turns out, if you put a man back together enough times, if you've help his life your hands, and held him as his nightmares got too much for him to handle; you begin to care.

Which is why I'm nervous now. He's never late. He's the most punctual person I've ever known. I can always depend on him to arrive at eight 'o'clock sharp bearing food and news and company. The only friend I have left except for dust bunnies.

I used to have a radio; used to listen to Potterwatch. I'm the second most hated person in Wizarding Britian. Severus may have killed Albus Dumbledore, but no one liked him. Most probably convinced themselves they had seen it coming ages ago, but me, I was one of Harry Potter's best friends. I was the brains of the Golden-trio. No one expected me to become a traitor. My only comfort is the fact they all just call me a coward. Say I took my parents and fled. I'd hate to know what they would say if they knew that I was with Severus.

Sometimes I wish I could have told Ron and Harry the truth. The opinion of the masses stopped mattering to me years ago, but theirs does matter and it eats away at me that they think that I up and left them. It's better that they think that I ran off than having any idea that I'm with Severus though. I have that at least. I had to leave the radio behind during the move. Now all I have to listen to is silence.

He arrives covered in blood. His first words are to assure me that it isn't his. I know then that I need to make tea, do anything to get away from him for a while. His black eyes are hard like chips of flint. His face an emotionless mask. He needs time to come back from wherever it is he goes to whenever he is summoned.

I try to focus on my task, but my eyes keep straying over to where he sits. His hands cradle his head and they are shaking, a noticeable shake. Most of the time it is very hard to tell, I've gotten better at it, but even I have to be close. Even his breathing is a bit shaky.

By the time I've gotten the tea ready, he had calmed. His hands still shake a bit, but his eyes have softened. When he looks at me it is with a sort of sad fondness, which is new, and worry, which isn't.

I never asked him what happens. He tells me and even then it is only this:

"I killed a Muggle girl today. She looked like you."

He leaves without ever touching his tea and when he returns about an hour later-his hair damp and without a drop of blood on him- he sets my groceries down for the week and sits down in his usual chair. Well the usual chair for this place.

I find several Muggle paperbacks in the bags.

* * *

**AN:**

_This is a rewrite of the first chapter and since I've switched to first person, I'm planning on rewriting the second one as well. I wasn't pleased at all with the old one and while I'm more satisfied with this one, I am one of those people that is never really happy with what they've written and just go back and rewrite it all the time. So, this might be the first in a long line of rewrites._


	2. Damned Spot

**Damned Spot**

Blood was everywhere. It clung to her, the sheets, to His clothes. The coppery smell of it hung in the air making her want to gag on the very smell of it. He had returned in the worst shape He had ever been in. Voldemort had found a hint of remorse inside of him at the death of the Woman. _She looked like you._

He had been whipped, stabbed, Crucio'd, several of his finger were broken, along with ribs, and the list kept growing with each diagnostic spell she cast. Hermione was amazed that He had even managed to apparate here without splinching Himself. It had taken her a good portion of the day to completely heal Him. Now He slept on the spoiled, blood-soaked sheets.

_She looked like you._

Hermione looked down at her hands. His blood caked them, clung to them, stained them. _ Promise me. _

They always looked red to her after that. He told her they were as pale as usual. _As white as the driven snow._ She never mentioned it again and did her very best to ignore the sight of the red splotches that never seemed to come off no matter how hard she scrubbed.


End file.
